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FACES for the Future Coalition

The FACES for the Future Coalition delivers the highly successful FACES program model to communities seeking to prepare high school students for entry into the health professions by developing their own pipeline programs. FACES incorporates best practices in adolescent medicine, innovative pedagogy,and community engagement. Taken together, the model addresses the diverse needs of young people interested in healthcare careers, and prepares students to meet the challenges of impending health workforce shortages and worsening health disparities.

Program Director(s)

Program Site

Projects

FACES - Supporting Health Career Pathways

FACES for the Future Coalition will work to improve student awareness and knowledge of health careers by implementing work-based learning opportunities and by aligning school curricula with these opportunities in the Sacramento City Unified School District.

FACES Coalition, Capacity Building Project with Roosevelt High School

FACES will work with Roosevelt High School’s Health Academy in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA to support development of curriculum and work-based learning opportunities for Academy students. The overall objective is to support a Health Academy in a Building Healthy Community and create meaningful learning opportunities for minority students interested in health careers, to stabilize their pathway to employment, and to support development of a culturally representative health workforce for the community.

FACES for the Future - John O’Connell High School

The FACES for the Future Coalition will oversee the establishment of a new FACES for the Future program at John O’Connell High School in San Francisco. This program will introduce students to career pathways into healthcare, public health, and behavioral health while supporting them with academic interventions, the coordination of wellness services, referrals to outside agencies when needed, and youth leadership development opportunities.

FACES for the Future Coalition

FACES for the Future Coalition will provide technical assistance to existing programs, replicate the program in new communities of need, evaluate impact across programs to standardize best practices and innovate the program model through curriculum development and new program design. Funding supports sustainability for the San Francisco program, planning for the Sacramento program, and building operational capacity for dissemination of best practices and expertise in the field.

FACES for the Future Coalition: A Mentorship Model to Advance Collaborative Pipelines for Student Success

FACES for the Future designs programs that target interventions to support disadvantaged minority youth in underserved communities. FACES programs provide comprehensive “wrap-around” services including health careers training, academic enrichment, psychosocial support and intervention, and youth leadership development. For this project, FACES for the Future Coalition will 1) scale its program replication strategy to a national level in Detroit, MI and Dona Ana County, NM, 2) continue to grow its state-wide replication in California, 3) develop a program-to-program mentorship model to better support emerging programs and to create a community of learning and practice across programs, and 4) increase outreach efforts to disseminate the programs’ impact as well as to better connect with FACES for the Future Alumni entering into the health care workforce.

FACES for the Future Core Support

Core operational support to sustain to provide technical assistance to existing FACES for the Future Coalition to continue to provide health professions programming for students in the Bay Area, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Imperial Valley.

FACES for the Future Health Scholars Program at UC Davis School of Medicine

The FACES for the Future Coalition in partnership with the University of California at Davis School of Medicine and the Arthur Benjamin Health Professions High School in Sacramento will implement a new FACES for the Future program in fall 2013.

FACES for the Future – Health Scholars Academy

The FACES Health Scholars Academy is a multi-year program to prepare at-risk, disadvantaged high school youth for careers in the health professions. Students receive: 1) education to prepare them for health careers and internships in hospital departments and community clinics; 2) academic support, enrichment and college preparation activities; 3) wellness support and interventions when required to address psychosocial and environmental stressors that may impede student achievement; and 4) opportunities for youth leadership.

FACES for the Future – Summer Medical Academy

The FACES Summer Medical Academy is a tuition-based, intensive summer experience designed to expose high school students to the fields of medicine, nursing and allied health professions. The goal of the program is to offer youth a glimpse into the array of advanced educational strategies and tools that comprise current medical training, while familiarizing young people with critical concepts that promote an understanding of culturally responsive, compassionate and patient-centered health care practice.

FACES Program Support

The purpose of the FACES for the Future Coalition at PHI is: 1) to develop, standardize and consistently evaluate the FACES for the Future program toolkit; 2) to provide capacity-building support and professional expertise in existing FACES programs throughout California to ensure program stability and share best practices; and 3) to mindfully and strategically replicate the FACES for the Future program model in other California communities in need.

Insurance Literacy Curriculum Development

FACES for the Future Coalition at Public Health Institute will produce a six month planning process to design curriculum focused on the issues of insurance literacy for adolescents in California. The curriculum will be developed with the input of key stakeholders and will wed new content to the existing FACES for the Future pedagogical framework.

Here's How We're Making a Difference

Bringing the FACES Model to High School Students Across the Country

In 2017, FACES expanded its programs outside California for the first time, launching new multi-year healthcare internship and leadership development programs in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Denver, Colorado.

The Albuquerque program serves students from Native American Community Academy, South Valley Academy, and Health Leadership High School; the Denver program partners with Manual High School, Denver Public Schools, and the Denver Health System. FACES also held summer workshops with students in Detroit, Michigan, and is actively working to launch a full academic year program there. FACES now serves nearly 1,000 students per academic year.

Connecting Low Income San Francisco High School Students With Medical Careers

Thanks to funding from Kaiser Permanente, in 2015 FACES for the Future launched a new program for juniors and seniors at John O'Connell High School in the Mission District of San Francisco, CA. The program supports entry into healthcare professions through internships, workshops, academic support, college preparation, and wellness support.

In its first year, the pilot program reached over 50 students who attended weekly trainings and workshop on clinical skills, career exposure, and professional development. In addition, 200 students received exposure to workshops focused on health career, during school wide events and health fairs. The program is currently staffed by a program coordinator through a first-of-its-kind contract between PHI and the San Francisco Department of Public Health, from the Mental Health Service Act workforce development fund overseen by San Francisco County.

Mentoring the Diverse Health Care Workforce of Tomorrow

"FACES not only made me be want to be a doctor,” said Chris Travis (pictured, left), a 2007 graduate of FACES Oakland, and a first year medical student at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, “it introduced me to people who would help me one day make that dream a reality."

Evaluations show that a full 100% of FACES students graduate high school, compared with only 40% of their peers in some communities. Nine out of 10 are accepted into post-secondary college or training, and a large number plan to go on to pursue healthcare and health-related professions.

Partnering to Host the Global Health Youth Summit

PHI's Global Health Fellows Program II (GHFP-II) and FACES for the Future Coalition (FACES) are making the global health workforce more representative of the American people. Research show that many backgrounds, perspectives, and skill sets remain underrepresented in global health. We also know that decisions about career paths are made long before one enters the workforce, often as early as high school.

In 2017, GHFP-II and FACES for the Future Coalition to host the second ever Global Health Youth Summit. The Summit was an immersive, weeklong activity that exposed college-bound, high school students to global health as a potential career. Throughout the week, the students, who were predominantly from backgrounds underrepresented in global health, met with leaders from USAID, engaged in global health competency-building exercises, and learned about opportunities for youth to make an impact in global health.